I don’t want my kids growing up afraid to tell me things. You drank? Okay. You smoked? Okay. You’re struggling? That’s alright. I want them to be able to talk to me without feeling like they’re going to be punished, so they end up isolating and keeping things from me. I want them to feel safe opening up to me without fear or judgment. When it’s hard to trust anyone nowadays, I want them to know I am always here, even when everyone leaves.
“When you punish a child for their honesty they begin to lie.”
My current job has me working with children, which is kind of a weird shock after years in environments where a “young” patient is 40 years old. Here’s my impressions so far:
Birth - 1 year: Essentially a small cute animal. Handle accordingly; gently and affectionately, but relying heavily on the caregivers and with no real expectation of cooperation.
Age 1 - 2: Hates you. Hates you so much. You can smile, you can coo, you can attempt to soothe; they hate you anyway, because you’re a stranger and you’re scary and you’re touching them. There’s no winning this so just get it over with as quickly and non-traumatically as possible.
Age 3 - 5: Nervous around medical things, but possible to soothe. Easily upset, but also easily distracted from the thing that upset them. Smartphone cartoons and “who wants a sticker?!!?!?” are key management techniques.
Age 6 - 10: Really cool, actually. I did not realize kids were this cool. Around this age they tend to be fairly outgoing, and super curious and eager to learn. Absolutely do not babytalk; instead, flatter them with how grown-up they are, teach them some Fun Gross Medical Facts, and introduce potentially frightening experiences with “hey, you want to see something really cool?”
Age 11 - 14: Extremely variable. Can be very childish or very mature, or rapidly switch from one mode to the other. At this point you can almost treat them as an adult, just… a really sensitive and unpredictable adult. Do not, under any circumstances, offer stickers. (But they might grab one out of the bin anyway.)
Age 15 - 18: Basically an adult with severely limited life experience. Treat as an adult who needs a little extra education with their care. Keep parents out of the room as much as possible, unless the kid wants them there. At this point you can go ahead and offer stickers again, because they’ll probably think it’s funny. And they’ll want one. Deep down, everyone wants a sticker.
This is also a pretty excellent guide to writing kids of various ages
Good guide. It is one of my biggest pet peeves when 6-10 year olds are all written like 3-4 year olds. Positively cringey. If in doubt err on the side of the kid being more mature than you expect.
Telling an aromantic person “you’ll find love one day! Don’t give up!” Is like telling a gay person they’ll one day be straight if they just keep trying not to be gay.
Sometimes people say this honestly thinking it’s a nice thing to say but it’s not. It’s horrifying. It’s asking Aro people to keep trying to force themselves into a shape society finds acceptable. It’s telling them any feelings of self loathing and inadequacy they have from years of being told love is the most important thing in life are spot on. If they hate themselves that’s good. They should.
It’s conversionist rhetoric. It’s arophobic. Aromantic people do not need saving, they do not need fixing, they are not broken.
That I’m ‘really gay’ and ‘suffering from internal homophobia’
That what happened to me ‘wasn’t conversion therapy’
That my identities are ‘disgusting’ and ‘a threat to children’
Examples of who it was a phase for to ‘prove’ it’s a phase for me as well
That if I don’t ‘admit’ most if not all people like me are ‘gay with internal homophobia’ gay children will hate themselves for years thinking they’re my identities instead of gay
That the rape and murder of gay people is my fault
That I ‘steal resources’ from gay people
That I’m lying about being sexually assaulted ‘for attention’ as my identities are ‘attention seeking’ so I shouldn’t be trusted
That if I go to pride I’m ‘invading’ a space that doesn’t belong to me
That every bit of abuse that happened to me because of my identities either ‘didn’t happen’ or ‘didn’t count’ as oppression
‘Why do you want to be oppressed so badly?’
I’m talking about being bi and trans, but I see every one of these things said to ace and aro people on a daily basis.
Saw a post saying the op wanted to ‘vomit’ after seeing an ace flag at Stonewall because it’s ‘disrespectful to the gays who were beaten and oppressed there’: I have had ‘gays get beaten, bisexuals don’t because Straight Passing Privilege’ used against me, and ‘where were you at Stonewall? Off with your het partners having it easy, cowards!’
People have said the trans flag should be ‘burned’ when seeing it at rallies and tried to get the bi and trans flags removed because they ‘don’t belong’.
I’ve seen the Pulse shooting used to shame ace and aro people. I have been told due to my ‘bi privilege’ it was ‘not my tragedy to mourn’.
Bisexual contingents frequently get booed at pride parades for ‘invading gay spaces’. Visibly bi people get shouted at and told to ‘go home’. Bi and trans people perceived to be in ‘het’ relationships get told ‘get away from our pride!’
I was accused of being ‘divisive’ for planning things for Bi Visibility Day by a cis gay man who then proceeded to tell me how trans people ‘didn’t belong’ in the community. I see ace and aro people get shamed for having their own events and then told they ‘don’t belong’ in the same breath.
These are the same fucking arguments if all you do is replace bi and trans with ace and aro. And I’m not going to let that be forgotten.
